The GOG galaxy client is probably full of security holes as well as their website

It’s just that no one bothers to try to find them because no one wants GOG accounts. The last time hackers cared was when they figured out how to abuse GOG gifting policy for the Witcher 3. Which their response was basically to become Madagascar and shut it all down. Since then GOG accounts and games have no value which is why no one cares. The second anyone figures out some kind of way to extract value hackers will be all over it.

Hackers didn’t care about itch.io up until they figured out how to abuse their integration with isthereanydeal and the ability to get paid immediately from posting a fake version of popular games at discounted prices

GOG renamed itself to GOG expresslly to distance themselves from 'old games' and instead into a more generic store. makes sense given taht eventaully you will simply rn out of games to port. Plus steam was getting much more into that space as well, negating pretty much GOG's only real differentiating factor. Before steam didn't have such games. But its now pretty much on parity with GOG on the old school game side (with some notable exceptions of course)

GOG functionally right now has the same (but in reverse) problem that Stardock/Impulse has

Stardock was making the game Elemental. But also had Impulse an online gaming store (yes there are stores other than Steam). Impulse was making GOBS MORE MONEY than the game division was. So resources, programmers, etc were sent to you know the thing that is making gobs of money because that makes good business sense. And thus the game suffered (as anyone who remembers Elemental's disastrous launch remembers). Stardock eventually sold of Impulse to Gamestop and is now concentrating on games.


GOG's business model is not being a store

Its CD Project selling the Witcher

That's whats generating 75% of their revenue

That's whats making them 90% of their profit

So guess what. GOG is basically a 2nd class citizen. No one wants to invest in GOG because that money is probably better spent on CD Project. I mean sure they'll keep GOG running, but if push comes to shove, GOG isn't getting money/resources. CD Project and the Witcher are. As a publicly traded company CD PRoject needs to generate profit. And investors will not take kindly to their investment continuing to generate less and less profit over time, as CD Project has done in the past 2 fiscal years.

Investors do not care that in FY17 GOG made 10k PLN more profit than FY16. They care that CD PRoject make 80k LESS PROFIT in that same time period.

This is probably why GOG Galaxy is sucking so hard for so long. Despite all the fanfare they've done literally nothing with the platform other than make a very bad glorified Steam clone from a 2010. Probably because they don't have the resources or the backing to make it what it wants to be, because hey if I've got money/resources do I dump it into GOG or the Witcher? The answer is obvious especially if you want to keep investors happy.

Gog has failed because they, like all other pretenders, don’t compete with steam

Steam is not a store

Steam is a middleware that happens to sell games

Steams business is not the store

If your business model is to compete with the store you have already failed

I aruge that GOG absolutely totally botched the launch of the Witcher 3

GOG had people in the palm of their hand. Hell even scammers were stealing from GOG to sell Witcher 3 copies of the game on GOG. Outside of steam you could only get GOG keys for witcher 3. That meant tons of people were going to get the witcher 3 on GOG.

They had the opportunity to get millions of people onto GOG and hook them into their store

And what did they do?

Nothing

GOG Galaxy was a flop. It did literally nothing and did most things worse than steam. They should ahve been making GOG Galaxy a million times better than Steam. And that shouldn't be hard given the steam client hasnt had a make over in years. They could implment all the features steam users wanted on steam. They could have come out with a shiny easy to use client that would wow everyone. what did they do? They launched GOG Galaxy with an anemic client that had no features that would pull users from Steam. The client was garbage. It had no friends, no community stuff, no actual real features other than 'you can download your games'. The ONE TIME they had an audience of milions of people desperate for their game, and they wasted it.

That seems incredibly naive given that the only way to get the Witcher 3 when it was relaesed was

1) On steam directly
2) Go to GOG

Aka literally EVERYONE was loading up GOG to play the Witcher 3.

This is also nonsensical in that are you telling me anyone using GOG right now is manually extracting 20+ rar files and extracting them manually, then doing the install for the Witcher3? No. They're using GOG Galaxy because its INFINITELY easier to use.

Using the old style installers and using GOG Galaxy is like saying there's a choice of using a dixie cup to empty your pool or a pump. Yes both 'technically' work and you 'technically' have a choice, but no one is using the dixie cup.

I"m not sure what 'good will' you're referring to. What is wrong with launching the Witcher 3 and then telling everyone "Hey we have this awesome client you can use to download and install the game. It works just like steam but its optional. OH and its a billion times better than steam". What part of this would all the fanboy 'drm free' fanatics have had an issue with? "OH gee I hate convenience"?

Again what part of this is going to make anyone angry. GOG Galaxy launches with huge fanfare and with a giant new userbase going "wow this is really good and a ton better than Steam". Again GOG Galaxy would function as it does today, all the idiotic nonsense they said it would have like 'being optional' and whatever. It just launched with ACTUAL FEATURES people cared about instead of "glorified download manager that makes the EA Downloader look good" that it did. They could have launched with what they have now which is a pathetic anemic version of their 'vision' that finally integrates things like a Friends list and profiles. It would still be sad and pathetic compared to steam but it would be better than what they showed users back when the Witcher 3 came out.

They had one single window to show a ton of people how awesome gog Galaxy could be an dhow much better it could be compared to steam

And they blew it.

And everything they've done in the 3 years since has been the same. Its obvious they don't care about GOG Galaxy or don't have the resources or the will to actually do anything with it. Barely anything they claimed in their 'vision' exists in GOG Galaxy at all 3 years on. They had YEARS to do something with it. And they squandered every second of that. The only thing GOG is doing better than Steam is, is Valve Time at this point.

GOG is a store. GOG is a business. ITs not your friend. They implemented regional pricing, despite all the people on forums screaming bloody murder. THey implemented DLC despite them insisting they were never going to allow DLC. They're going to keep breaking these imaginary promises you hold them to, because they can't afford to do so while the market around them leaves them behind.

Steams business is not the store